Roulette TV: Phill Niblock

Roulette TV is a cable access television program produced by the experimental music institution Roulette in New York City. Roulette TV captures the creative process of live performance, giving viewers a unique window into Roulette’s distinctive programming through in-depth artist-driven features including studio visits, performance footage, and interviews. Composer, filmmaker, and photographer, Phill Niblock runs the Experimental Intermedia Foundation in New York and writes noble, hypnotic, majestic music constituted of sustained sounds for large instrumental ensembles of the same family (e.g. all strings, all flutes, all trombones, etc.) that very gradually change their timbre and pitch characteristics (pieces such as “Four Full Flutes“, “Early Winter“ for massed strings, “Didjeridoos“, and “Five More Strings Quartets“). The beginning and ending segments of Phill Niblock’s composition “Guitar too, for four,“ also known as “G2, 44.“ Although only three guitarists are seen on the tape, the computer samples make a total of 24 guitar parts plus two tracks respectively from five other players, which contribute to a slowly unfolding density of harmonic richness. On two screens are images of Japanese workers on Honshu island unloading and processing fish, mending and re-stringing nets, trawling out to sea, and displaying their catch. Bits of ephemeral melodic-like gestures (overtone illusions) sometimes arise later in the piece. In his interview, Niblock explains how the notion of minimalism applies to his music, his fascination with the movements of people working, his efforts to get rid of editing-style, his relationship to the audience, and how to keep his work filled with content but “neutral“ in the sense of allowing the audience their own perceptions. Aired on rTV: 2000 Performance: May 14, 2000 Produced by Jim Staley -- Founded in 1978, Roulette’s mission is to support artists creating new and adventurous art in all disciplines by providing them with a venue and resources to realize their creative visions and to build an audience interested in the evolution of experimental art. #RouletteIntermedium